In short: resounding yes. Many are against wind turbines and wind farm building, and I have to admit they have a few good reasons other than the stupid „I don’t like the look of wind mills in the countryside”. Well, I don’t like that the Arctic is getting smaller and smaller every day, and the fact that maybe my children won’t be able to experience the world as it is today. Letting go of the untouched view is a small sacrifice in exchange for nothing less than the whole future of Earth.

Other than the panorama there are a few reasons why one wouldn’t choose wind turbines over regular electricity generation:
Wind turbines do not produce constantly. Their performance varies based on the actual power of the wind. This can be from zero to storm force!
Efficiency is not the best available: a modern turbine running at its normal pace can deliver power to 500 households. Count quickly how many would be needed for a city with 20 million habitants?
It is not true that wind turbines are 100% environment friendly, because when factories produce them, they do emit pollution into the air. But that is a onetime pollution against the constant negative effects of regular ways.
They are noisy creatures. One turbine can produce the same level of noise as a car travelling at 60mph on the highway! You certainly don’t want that under your window constantly.

BUT almost all of these are against the industrial versions, not the ones built for home usage.

The wind is free, and it can be captured with good efficiency nowadays compared to the results some decades ago.
They do not take large portion of lands like solar farms do! The land around these small towers can be cultivated or used in a different way without any problem!
The other half of people thinks they add to the view of the landscape!
If you live on the top of the hill or miles away from any civilization you can still generate your own power with smaller wind turbines!
And the last and best one: you can build one yourself! It’s an easy process and nowadays there are complete guides available. You can view a few of these on the link found at the end of this article!

Some people enjoy taking matters into their own hands and instead of paying for a wind generator, they prefer to create a project of their own and build one. Building a wind generator from nothing is actually not as difficult as one may think. In order to build a simple model of a wind turbine, you will need to go to a shop with basic power and hand tools, and have some degree of dedication.

Large wind generators of 2000 Watts and up are a major project needing very strong construction so prepare yourself in advance for the time and effort if that‘s what you want to do. But the smaller ones in the 700 to 1000 Watt, 8 to 11 foot range can be built with not too much difficulty.

In fact, it is highly recommend that you tackle a smaller wind turbine before even thinking about building a large one. You will need to be able to cut and weld steel, and a metal lathe can be handy although to make life easier on yourself you could take into consideration hiring a machine shop that turns brake rotors to do some small steps for you.

In most locations, gentle winds (5-15 mph) are the most common, and strong winds are very rare. You should try to make a sturdy machine that will produce good power in low wind speeds, and that will be able to survive high wind events while still producing maximum power. Remember, the power available in the wind goes up by a factor of 8 as the wind speed doubles.

Other critical factors are rotor size and tower height. The power a wind turbine can harvest goes up by at least a factor of 4 as you double the rotor size. And making a tower higher gets you above turbulence for better performance and increased power output. Putting a wind turbine on a short tower is like mounting solar panels in the shade it simply just does not make any sense, doing so, does it now.

Before you jump into something serious like building your own wind turbine, do your homework. Some things work and other things will not work. You can therefore save hours and dollars by learning from other people’s successes and failures.